


Mall Monster

by Cynder2013



Category: The Kane Chronicles - Rick Riordan
Genre: F/M, Monster of the Week, Originally Posted on FanFiction.Net, Post-The Serpent's Shadow, Snakes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:28:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24340594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cynder2013/pseuds/Cynder2013
Summary: Carter and Zia run into trouble on their second date.
Relationships: Carter Kane/Zia Rashid
Comments: 4
Kudos: 25





	Mall Monster

**Author's Note:**

  * For [arashi wolf princess](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=arashi+wolf+princess).



_Carter Kane_

Let me clear one thing up right now ̶ after the battle with He-Whose-Name-Must-Not-Be-Spoken (AKA the big, ugly snake) I was perfectly fine with never seeing another snake. In fact, if I went my whole life without catching a whiff of snake then I could die a very happy magician. OK, maybe that’s a slight exaggeration but it doesn’t matter anyway because we Kanes never have that sort of luck.

Zia and I were on a date. Now, since our first date had gone over really well, no shabti attacks, no magic penguins, I decided that risking another date at the same mall wasn’t a bad idea. As you can probably guess, I was wrong.

We had decided to get lunch at the food court then walk across the mall to the movie theatre because Zia, having been raised by Iskandar in an underground, decidedly un-modern city, had never seen a film on the big screen. Of course, on the way from the food court to the theatre I managed to get us totally and utterly lost.

“Seriously?” I muttered as we stared at one of those ‘You Are Here’ maps. “How is it that we could find our way out of an Egyptian tomb while blindfolded but we can’t manage what should be a simple walk?”

“Perhaps it is because nothing we ever do is really simple,” Zia replied.

She had a point. I looked at the map again “I think we’re on the wrong floor.”

Zia squeezed my arm. “Don’t stress yourself out, we have plenty of time.”

“True. Elevator or escalator?” In response Zia led the way towards the elevator doors. I pressed the arrow and we waited for the elevator to arrive.

Suddenly I felt a chill go up my spine, like the kind you get when you’re looking at a baby bird that suddenly gets eaten by a camouflaged something-or-other that was practically standing on top of it. I looked around at the crowds of people rushing about. “Did you feel something?” I asked Zia who nodded. And here we were hoping that our only problem would be getting to the movie on time.

“Maybe it’s nothing,” I said, not really believing it.

Zia cocked her head, listening. “Do you hear that?” The noise that she was talking about was even drawing the attention of the mortals so I didn’t really have to reply. There was a dry rasping sound, like a huge sheet of sandpaper being dragged across pavement. Overlaying it was a chorus of hissing. 

“Snakes,” I said at once. “Great.”

“Snake!” someone screamed.

 _Way to be redundant_ , I thought as I turned around. I groaned quietly as I saw the snake. It really wasn’t that hard to spot. First of all, it was huge. Second, it was striped red, yellow and black and had four matching dragon wings that were dragging along the floor. What was that rhyme?

“If red touches yellow you’re a dead fellow. If red touches black you’re OK Jack.”

Don’t ask me who came up with it, probably the dad of someone named Jack. Anyway, this snake definitely had the red strips next to the yellow strips, which meant that if that snake bit anyone they would be in big trouble. The snake would have no problem biting someone for the last reason that it was so easy to spot, it had twelve heads.

I blinked. It appeared that, despite its _twelve_ heads the monster hadn’t noticed the two magicians standing almost directly in front of it so I took the time it was flicking its _twelve_ tongues at a perfume stand nearby to count its heads just to make sure my speed counting hadn’t made me record a few heads thrice or something.

Twelve. _Twelve._ Why does one snake need twelve heads? It was like that Greek monster, the Hydra, which, if I remembered correctly, grew two new heads for every one cut off. I just hoped that this snake wasn’t the basis for that myth. The last time I fought a solid snake with more than one head I ended up telling Sadie my secret name to avoid dying in a one star hotel in Egypt.

“We have to get the mortals out of here,” I told Zia, who rolled her eyes at me and began herding a group of kindergarten kids towards the stairs. I summoned my crook and flail from the Duat and ran towards the snake, which was quickly losing interest in Chanel No. 5.

“Hey, clown-face!” I shouted. Not the best battle cry but in my defence a lot of the heads had red noses, or rather, red strips at the start of their face.

As predicted, all twelve of the heads swivelled in my direction, hissing. _“Kingling,”_ the one on the far right hissed. Great, now it could talk.

“Chauphis,” Zia said from somewhere to my left.

“That’s what it is?” I asked. “Don’t they usually only have one head?”

 _“Kingling,”_ the head to the far left said in agreement to the head on the far right. Why did I have a feeling they were talking about me?

“An abnormally,” Zia decided. “Try talking to it.”

“Me?”

“Do you see any other kings here?” So the heads were talking about me.

“Why?” I asked, tracking the movement of the heads with my eyes. They seemed to be clustered over the middle of the body whispering among themselves. Happily, that meant that they _weren’t_ paying attention to me and Zia.

“‘Symbolic of sacral and regal sovereignty,’” Zia quoted. “In short, it should listen to you.”

“Oh joy,” I muttered. “And if it doesn’t?”

“I have a plan.”

That was good enough for me. I cleared my throat loudly and all of the heads broke of their discussion to look at me quizzically. “Uh, hi. How are you? I’m Carter.” Zia coughed. “Carter Kane the Pharaoh of Egypt,” I amended. “I was wondering what you, uh, were doing here?”

 _“Kingling,”_ all of the heads hissed together, leering.

“That’s encouraging,” I muttered. I took a breath. “If you’re not too busy we could go for coffee or something.” I could feel Zia’s willpower bubbling over as she held herself back from slapping me upside the head.

 _“Kill,”_ the snake hissed.

I gulped. “‘Kill’ is a strong word. How about, uh, ‘perfume’? You seemed pretty interested in that perfume stand over there. Did I ever tell you about the time me and my sister met the god of perfume?”

 _“Food,”_ about half of the heads said.

“Okay…. ‘Food’ is progress.”

 _“Kill,”_ The heads all chimed together. 

“Forget what I said about progress.”

The snake lunged towards me but before I could raise my flail seven familiar pink ribbons darted through the air. Zia gritted her teeth as her Seven Ribbons wrapped themselves around the snake, growing longer and wider as they twisted and tied.

“I name thee, Many Heads, He-With-Spit-Like-Fire, Threestripe…” she called out the names of the demon snake as it’s heads were bound together to stop it from thrashing out of its bounds. “..He-Who-Serves-The-Pharaoh! Be banished to the deepest layers of the Duat till thou hast repented for thy actions against thy master, the Pharaoh of Eternal Egypt!”

Poor Threestrip gave a wail in twelve part harmony, _“Mercy!”_ , but Zia wasn’t having any of it. With a final “As I say, it will be!” the ribbons tightened mercilessly and Threestrip dissolved into strips of sand.

“Nice work,” I said, putting my weapons away. “And we didn’t cause any destruction this time.” Zia wiped at her forehead and smiled. “I feel sorry for him, really,” I continued. “Against you he didn’t stand a chance.” 

Zia raised an eyebrow. “Like a certain pharaoh, perhaps?”

“Maybe. What was all that stuff about him serving the pharaoh?”

“Threestrip was enlisted by Ra in the old days. He was supposed to protect the pharaoh when Ra retired to the heavens. We only talked about him briefly; it’s not a well-known story.”

“I assume he went mad or something?” I asked.

Zia nodded. “Wouldn’t you if you had to share your body with eleven other people?”

I grimaced. “Horus was enough for me thanks.” I held out my hand to her. “As we didn’t create rubble of any kind, how about we see if we can still make that movie?”

Zia took my hand and grinned. “Of course.”

We walked towards the theatre, definitely in the right direction this time. Just before we reached an area that the mortals hadn’t cleared out of, I stopped.

“Is something wrong, Carter?” Zia asked worriedly.

“Nothing’s wrong.” I took a jewellery box out of my pocket. “I just wanted to give you this before we run into something that will actually cause damage.” I opened the box to reveal the gold and emerald _ankh_ earrings that I had bought the day before.

“Carter…” 

I grinned. “Happy Birthday Zia.”


End file.
